Movie Review - "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" directed by Mira Niar

Movie Review - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This blog is a part of my classroom activity of Postcolonial Studies: Film Screening: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Here is the blog of a given task: Click Here

Director – Mira Niar

Screenplay – William Wheeler

        Writer – Javed Akhtar (eulogy in

              Urdu) Mohsin Hamid (Screen

               Story and Novel) Ami Boghani

        (Screen story)

       Starring – Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson,

           Liev Schreiber, Kiefer Sutherland

           The movie “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” focuses upon the theme of racism and an American Dream of a young man Changez Khan and his journey of becoming a reluctant fundamentalist. There are two meanings of fundamentals have been used, first in business and another is in terrorism. The word has same meaning but in different context.

     

          The life journey of Changez Khan is the plot of film which switches between past and present. Boby Lincon takes an interview of Changez Khan, he come to know the whole story of 9/11 attack with the view of a “Pakistani human”.

   

         Post colonial aspects can be seen in many scenes of the movie, there are two perspectives which go parallel, first is the view of Boby Lincon and his views about Changez and another is of Changez Khan and his views about Americans. 

        The American colleague of Changez Khan has been kidnapped and the main suspect of this kidnapping was Changez because he was a Muslim tutor. He tells his story to the interviewer. 

        Changez Khan was an ambitious man and when he went for an interview, first Jim (the owner of Underwood Samson) makes fun of Changez which defines that the mentality of white people towards Indians or Pakistani.

   

        When Changez was talking with Erica about his feelings towards the painting, she said that,

“Would I have to wear burkha?”

which suggests the point of view of an American woman about Pakistani women.

    

       After 9/11 the life of Changez has been changed and everyone from his colleague and other American looking towards him differently, and Changez has also changed in his perception towards people. There are many scenes which suggests that people are having a strong mindset that every Muslim and Pakistani is involved in 9/11 attack.

     

       For the first time Changez felt that he is an outsider and a Muslim in America when police has treated him as a terrorist, and in that scene we can see that there is a reflection of Changez on glass and WTC tower is blasting, which suggests the blast of an American dream of Changez.

       Changez was also having love with America but when he felt that Americans are showing their patriotism by hating and hurting Islamic population of America he felt very inferior and also he confesses this when one White man calls him “Osama”, Changez said,

 “What was soft inside me fell away, what was hard became harder”

       

      The feeling of being “Other” in an America becaming stronger for Changez, as his beard has became his identity of being Muslim. Before 9/11 he was a clean shaved guy, but when everyone make him feel that he is a Muslim, he started keeping beard, maybe he was also showing a kind of patriotism towards his country as Americans were showing.

          Changez quit himself from America when his beloved has also called him Pakistani. The perspective of Changez towards the Pakistani has changes from the national identity to terroristic identity. Whenever he identified as a Pakistani he felt that he is being objectify as a terrorist. This was his mental colonialism which has dragged him into the college of Lahore as professor. There he come to know that the rationality and fundamentals of American business and the rational fundamentals of “Mujahir” of being terrorist was similar, to use people for one’s own purpose and Changez was comparing American Dream with Pakistani Dream, ultimately he stop dreaming and accepted the present.

      

        There is a good use of music and songs as per situations, in the kidnapping of the white professor Rainier there was a loud Sufi music, and in the meeting of Changez and Erica, where Changez tries to convince Erica to forget everything, the lyrics of background songs matches very well, “I want you to be..”.  When Changez was upset with the way he was treated in America and when he came back he had an arguments with his parents, and the background song was, “you say thing to burn the heart, yet I must smile” (Dil jala ne ki baat krte ho, fir bhi muskurane ko kehte ho) it defines the condition of Changez.  When Changez left the job, there was so much contradiction was in mind, and the song was reflecting it well, “All I want is a grain of respect”.

       The movie is worth watching with the perspective of post colonialism, terrorism and how racism takes place in the mind of people. The music and songs also gives enough justice to the situations.

Movie Review : Midnight's Children - directed by Deepa mehta

This blog is a part of my classroom activity of Postcolonial Studies: Film Screening: Midnight's Children

Here is the blog of a given task: Click Here

     Director – Deepa Mehta

Screenplay - Salman Rushdie

   Writer – Salman Rushdie

        Starring – Shabana Azmi

Ronit Roy, Shriya Saran, Satya Bhabha

              Midnight's Children is a book by Salman Rushdie that deals with India before independence and after independence. The book has a point of view of post colonialism, as we can see in the film that first there were British who have colonized and after independence there were Indians with powerful positions and were rulers of India. The movie not only represents the condition of India but Pakistan and Bangladesh are also there. Salman Rushdie has selected the historical even of independence but with fictional aspects, which reflects the term Historiography Metafiction.

            The plot is very complicated because of the confusion of parenthood of Shiva and Saleem. The whole life story of Saleem has been told by him to the audience. He starts from the marriage of his grandfather and grandmother, and also includes his mother’s life. Saleem was born at the exact movement when India became an independent nation, so the life of Saleem starts with the life of independent India and we can say that both are quite similar with each other. India got the power of democracy and Saleem got the telepathic power, even all the children who were born at exact 12 o’clock midnight of 14^th August got different kind of powers. By using his power Saleem created a link with all the states of India.

   

     In the film there are so many incidents which reflect post colonial aspects. From the very first scene when Saleem is telling his story, he says,

”most of what matters in our life takes place in our absence”

 The very significant line which suggests that how the control of our life is not in our hands.

          In the film we could see two sides of woman, one who feels they are inferior and another who is independent in nature. Naseem(Saleem’s grandmother), Vanita(exploited by William Methwold), Mumtaz(Saleem’s mother) can be seen as colonised women by Man. Here we can observe that how woman has shown as an inferior by man, Gayatri Spivak’s theory of post colonialism that “Can Subaltern Speak?” can be applied in the movie.

          We can say that the whole confusion of parentage has started because of William Mathwold, who has seduced Vanita, and supported by Mary, who has swapped the children, both were christens and some or the other way they were against the independence of India. Mary has changed the fate of two children, as in the movie there is a dialogue,

“Two lives were in hand, two babies were in palm, her private revolutionary act”

And the death of Joe suggests the Fall of Christianity in India.

  

             Saleem was humiliated by his teacher in his school and the way teacher was praising British man suggests that the education is also suffering and depended upon White people.

            Saleem was from rich family and Shiva was from poor background, both have powers but we can observe that how Shiva wants to use his power to overpower other people which reflects his hatred towards rich people and feeling of having inferiority by wealthy people, while Saleem wanted to help people and nation because he have never suffered from starvation and poverty.

          The establishment of Bangladesh, Saleem was the only survivor during the war and one Bengali man suggested him to change his identity as a Bengali otherwise he will be killed, which suggests the control of power.

The Magic of Parvati suggests that how the people of India believed in illusions, during the partition many people have to leave their country forcefully and this magical escapism of Saleem was the desire of those homeless people.

·     

     There are very important scenes in the film which has used camera as a language

®  Ahemd Sinai closed the door and isolated himself from the world

®  Saleem was hiding himself from his father’s ambitions.

®  Poster of “Mother India” (movie) was shown in the scene when Saleem comes to know about her mother’s extramarital affair, and in the poster the pose of lady suggests that how women are bounded with the social environment.

®  Parvati was lighting the lamps by magic and Picture singh said “Magic is real if you believe in it.”

             At the end of the movie, the family has a Hindu grandfather(Picturesingh), a Christian grandmother(Mary), a Muslim Father(Saleem), and a son who can be consider as mixture of different identities and again as Midnight’s children.